is I, who dare attempt unusual strains,
Of hosts unsung, and unfrequented plains;
The small shrill trump, and chiefs of little size,
And armies rushing down the darkened skies.
Where India reddens to the early dawn,
Winds a deep vale from vulgar eyes withdrawn:
Bosomed in groves the lowly region lies,
And rocky mountains round the border rise.
Here, till the doom of Fate its fall decreed,
The empire flourished of the pygmy-breed;
Here Industry performed, and Genius planned,
And busy multitudes o'erspread the land.
But now to these lone bounds if pilgrim stray,
Tempting through craggy cliffs the desperate way,
He finds the puny mansion fallen to earth,
Its godlings mouldering on th' abandoned hearth;
And starts, where small white bones are spread around,
"Or little footsteps lightly print the ground;"
While the proud crane her nest securely builds,
Chattering amid the desolated fields.
But different fates befel her hostile rage,
While reigned, invincible through many an age,
The dreaded Pygmy: roused by war's alarms,
Forth rushed the madding Mannikin to arms.
Fierce to the field of death the hero flies;
The faint crane, fluttering, flaps the ground, and dies;
And by the victor borne (o'erwhelming load!)
With bloody bill loose-dangling marks the road.
And oft the wily dwarf in ambush lay,
And often made the callow young his prey;
With slaughtered victims heaped his board, and smiled,
To visit the sire's trespass on the child.
Oft, where his feathered foe had reared her nest,
And laid her eggs and household gods to rest,
Burning for blood, in terrible array,
The eighteen-inch militia burst their way:
All went to wreck; the infant foeman fell,
When scarce his chirping bill had broke the shell.
Loud uproar hence, and rage of arms arose,
And the fell rancour of encountering foes;
Hence dwarfs and cranes one general havoc whelms,
And Death's grim visage scares the pygmy realms.
Not half so furious blazed the warlike fire
Of Mice, high theme of the Meonian lyre;
When bold to battle marched the accoutered Frogs,
And the deep tumult thundered through the bogs.
Pierced by the javelin-bulrush on the shore,
Here, agonizing, rolled the mouse in gore;
And there the frog (a scene full sad to see!)
Shorn of one leg, slow spraw